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Home buyers in Wales up 10% in the third quarter

In the third quarter:

Home buyers borrowed £1bn for house purchase, up 13% quarter-on-quarter and 9% year-on-year. They took out 7,800 loans, up 10% on the previous quarter and 4% on quarter three 2015.

First-time buyers borrowed £450m, up 7% on the second quarter and 13% on the same period last year. This totalled 3,900 loans, up 5% both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year.

Home movers borrowed £570m, up 16% on the second quarter and 6% compared to the same period in 2015. This came to 3,900 loans, up 15% quarter-on-quarter and 3% year-on-year.

Remortgage activity grew to £480m, up 7% on the previous quarter and 17% compared to a year ago. This came to 4,200 loans, up 5% quarter-on-quarter and 14% year-on-year.

Julie Ann Haines, CML Cymru chair, commented:

Lending to home buyers continues to increase in Wales, with first-time buyers really driving that growth. We saw more loans to first-time buyers this quarter than any other in 9 years, and affordability remains better in Wales than in the UK overall.

The data reflects the first quarter post the EU referendum result and the market appears resilient so far. It is likely to take time for the extent of any potential effects to be fully understood, but clearly the mortgage market is currently firmly open for business in Wales.

House purchase and remortgage activity in Wales

First-time buyers took out more loans in this quarter for house purchase than any other since 2007. First-time buyers borrowed on average £108,300 this quarter, up from £108,000 the previous quarter (£134,900 was the UK average). The typical average household income of a first-time buyers went from £33,800 to £34,100 (£40,500 in the UK overall), meaning the income multiple in Wales decreased to 3.29 from 3.31 the previous quarter (3.54 in the UK).

Third quarter activity in Wales for home movers remained consistent with levels in the same period seen the past few years. The amount the typical home mover borrowed in Wales went from £130,700 in the previous quarter to £131,000 this quarter (£172,800 in the UK overall), and the average household income of a home mover remained the same at £46,000 (£55,200 in the UK). This meant the typical income multiple in Wales went from 2.97 in the second quarter to 2.93 this period (the UK average was 3.27).

Remortgage activity continues to grow with more loans taken out in Wales for remortgage this period than any other quarter since the fourth quarter 2011. Those borrowers remortgaging borrowed more this quarter than any other since the first quarter of 2009.

Table 2: Value of loans for house purchase and remortgage in Wales

Notes to editors

1. The Council of Mortgage Lenders' members are banks, building societies and other lenders who together undertake around 97% of all residential mortgage lending in the UK. There are 11.1 million mortgages in the UK, with loans worth over £1.3 trillion.

2. Source: CML Regulated Mortgage Survey

3. The Council of Mortgage Lenders does not publish statistics for mortgage approvals. The data in our monthly Regulated Mortgage Survey and gross lending press releases relate to mortgage advances only. A mortgage approval is the firm offer to a customer of a specific amount of credit secured against a particular property. A mortgage advance is the total amount of loan actually provided to the buyer, by the lender. Please see the mortgage statistics timeline on our website for further information.

4. Data for the fourth quarter of 2016 will be released on Wednesday 22 February 2017.